Nigerian Roads: Roadmap to Progress

By

Adewumi Rowland

PhD Student, Newcastle University, UK

rowlandadewumi@yahoo.co.uk

The performance of the Nigerian roads sector has not been satisfactory despite its enormous potentials for growth and development. Traditionally, the poor transport facilities and infrastructure have severely delayed economic development and this weakened transport infrastructure has contributed negative attempts to alleviate poverty in the country. Nigeria is still considered poor with a low per capita income with a high proportion of the population poor and vulnerable despite modest economic growth during this present political dispensation. In recent times, academics and practical people have made their contribution to the state of the Nigerian road. This paper is not a blueprint for utopia, and is not equally an academic treatise. The contribution of the academic is obvious.  His sources he claimed are documented and can always be checked.  The experience of the practical person though not always worn on his sleeve, but is none the less real and practical. This paper aroused that only purposeful and realistic planning can lay the solid foundation for sustained economic greatness of the Nigerian roads which will form the base for the coming generation to build upon.  There is urgent need to preach breakage from past wastefulness, negligence, deceit and bad policy as regard the road network in the country.

The provision of roads and transportation facilities are fundamentally important to the development of Nigeria as well as the well-being of its inhabitants. Nigerian roads need urgent attentions, considering that an average of 50 people die everyday by road accidents, as claimed by a recent survey.  In 1914 the total road network in Nigeria is 3,200 km in length, 66,000km by 1960, and now the entire roads in the country are just a bit less that 200,000km of Federal, State and local road of which only just about 50,000km are paved. The Nigerian Inland Waterways and Railways are ineffective, hence the heavy reliance of the nation’s economy on road transportation. Only 80% of federal roads in Nigeria are partially paved, disallowing proper coverage of the nation’s over 900,000km² landmass. Technically, over N200 billion will be required to construct and maintain the balance of 20%.  In recognition of this, will the country attain stable and structured road network? Traffic movement has grown in urban areas of Nigeria over the decades, and further growth has been predicted.

In the 1997 estimate by the World Bank, Number of motor vehicles per 1,000 people is 12. Hence, a derivative estimate shows that over 15 millions Nigerian owns motor vehicles with a projected population of over 200,000,000 people. The traffic volume and number of which about 44% are passenger cars, 20% are buses and 30% lorries and vans, 1% road tractors and 5% motorcycles. Considering president Obasanjo’s inaugural address of May 1999: “… Transport is the lifeline of the economy and social interactions. An inefficient transport system implies stagnation in all sectors. Our priorities in this sector will be the design and implementing a new policy on road maintenance …” The Federal Ministry of Works is charged with the responsibility for the planning, design, construction and maintenance of the Federal Highways. The 36 State Ministries of Works and Transport have similar responsibility for the State roads while the 774 Local Government Works Departments have the responsibilities for Local Government roads. Simply put, they have failed. The works and the workings of the Works ministry are no longer workable.

No, this is not a Film Review! It is though, a comment upon the manner in which our roads are gravely deteriorating and the fruitless efforts been implemented to address the problems. This bureaucratic political foundation called Federal Ministry of Works should be scraped, as at date, the Ministry has committed the total sum of over N360 billion during the period from May 1999 up to July 2003, and however, they have only a very scanty result in road maintenance and construction to show for it. This has greatly contradicted the vision of the president based on the above inaugural address for road maintenance. Maintenance of roads, instead of building new roads should get priority. In addition, a large number of roads are made without proper construction method and suffer from sub-standard construction work. It is only in Nigeria that a road contractor finishes 10 km of roads in 3 days. Within a short period, the quality of such roads rapidly deteriorates. The above is justified considering the fact that of the over 33,000km of Federal Highways in Nigeria, only less that 9000km of roads and bridge projects covering the six geo-political zone is been completed or on-going from may 1999 to date.

The negative approach to acceptable standards in road maintenance policies is Nigeria’s problem. Maintenance is the provision of means to preserve the value of existing assets against depreciation, while rehabilitation is the refurbishment of an asset after near or total collapse. In Nigeria, from time immemorial, roads that are supposed to be maintained are merely redecorated, while roads that are supposed to be rehabilitated were just overlaid with some asphaltic material. It is difficult differentiating between rehabilitation and maintenance of roads in the Nigerian context. The draft budget of 2002 provides only N5.1 billion Naira for maintenance works only compared to the 38.6 billion Naira provided for rehabilitation. This only shows the extent of our understanding in differentiating between rehabilitation and maintenance. The professional consultants and consulting firms employed by the Ministry are not helping matter. It is only in Nigeria that the consultant is viewed as a mechanism for creating drawings. It does not matter what is on the drawings, whether they are right or wrong, or if design can be constructed. As long as there are computer drawings, the paperwork to say that there are drawings, together with the paperwork saying that the paperwork relating to the drawings, together with the drawings has been issued to the contractor, then everything is fine; and a road is given birth to!

Privatisation of the roads does not necessarily translate or equate high fuel taxation, but professional and sincere implementation is productive. Government simple has to re-create an efficient, collective and cumulative Fuel Tax System for use in the maintenance and rehabilitation of Federal, states and rural roads. A simple State Highway and Transportation Official department is proposed in the opinion of this paper.  In justifying the foregoing, the government ordered the dismantling of all toll-gates along Federal roads in January 2004 claiming it wants to avoid double-taxation. It was equally propose and as recently advertised that the various toll-gate plazas will converted into Highway Traffic Support Centres to aid smooth management of the roads.

Is it a deliberate attempt by the concern authority to confuse the masses and the elites due to the shortage of highway and bridges professionals in the country? How many roads and bridges expert do we have in the country? Can the body responsible (Federal Ministry of Works) boast of any seasoned updated roads and bridge experts? I have come to conclude that Nigeria have more magazine engineers than real engineers! It is not just about displaying COREN or NSE certificate. This is evident considering the fact that the consultants and contractors the Federal Ministry of Works relied on for this rehabilitation and maintenance are mere traders. It is an open secret for those who care to investigate and follow the affairs of the industry that the Arabs have taken over the industry, pushing contractors and consultants of high repute out of the business. Over 60% of roads contractors and consultant in Nigeria are of Arabs origin. The reason is not far fetch; transferring money abroad on behalf of the corrupt government official is easy.  EFCC needs to refocus its search light into these countries, and investigate how many Nigerian operate foreign accounts in the Arab countries, because all you hear is one account or the other in Europe and America? How many free houses have been built for state and federal ministry officials by these traders? How many government officials’ children are been sponsored all over Europe and America? How many CAC-registered companies initially practicing as a trading company have graduated and re-registered as a building and engineering contractor overnight? How many state commissioners are been sponsored by this trading contractor into such political positions? How much are paid to the Civil Service Commission Commissioners to promote and impose selected Directors by this contractors? A can of worms is sure to be opened!

Public and private officials have critical decisions to make regarding the management of our highway resources at their disposal. Hence, the implementation of any economic management and maintenance strategy needs consideration for proper decision making analysis. When a nation succeeds in the economic empowerment of her citizens, someone once made a courageous decision and many nations has perished due to lack of optimum decision-making. Decision making bodies in the Nigerian roads sectors uses the squeaky wheel approach in maintaining and rehabilitating our highways. Projects are selected for rehabilitation because they have created the greatest attention. We are only interested in design and construction, neglecting the normal simple international procedures of planning, design, construction, maintenance, and rehabilitation (PDCMR).

The above only explains the incompetence and malfunctioning professional integrities of the decision makers in the concerned ministries. I once asked ministry official: “what methods and parameter does the ministry uses in measuring roadway condition for necessary maintenance or rehabilitation”. He replied: “Numbers of accidents on the particular road, political interest and concern, and economic benefits from proposals submitted from our friends. If the four primary engineering characteristics of pavement condition used in evaluating pavement rehabilitation needs are applied to Nigerian roads, the whole road networks will have to be rehabilitated. The roads are not rideable, poor surface condition; wide evident structural failures and safety are common features of our road network.

Firstly, with a 23,000km of Federal roads network, a workable and common sense scenario is the tasking of about 60 small-size specialized company to maintain about 400km of Federal Roads each. This will only involve just two contractors per states. The major investment needs for establishing such a maintenance company and for the total cost per year for the company is less than 160,000,000.000 naira. This includes all necessary equipments, machineries, depreciation, materials and personnel cost. This can be sourced locally while the primary responsibility of the government in this regards will be ensuring an easy loan agreement for maintenance companies with a reduced interest rate.

What is the best transportation system adaptable to the Nigeria’s context? Professionally and with all sense of sincerity, the Federal Government should immediately develop a extensive and realistic Road Sector Policy with a view to achieving improved efficiency in the sector. Key aspects of this Policy must deliberately relate to the funding of the sector and, in particular, to the need to move towards full recovery of costs from road users for the continuous rehabilitation and maintenance of the road network.  The maintenance of roads should be a continuous activity, carried out routinely and in quick response to the inevitable tear-and-wear situations without frequent recourse to long bureaucratic tendering procedures in the Federal Ministry of Works.

There is always a way forward. The roads and bridge industry needs men of high integrity in the likes of El Rufia to sanitize the rots. Policies and programmes been sponsored and proposed by some clique that the Federal Government should take over the execution of maintenance works of our highways and bridges will be an exercise in futility. FERMA has failed, and any other rehabilitated bodies in this likes will surely fail. Macroeconomic theories and total reliance on the private sector will equally fail. Special economic and engineering studies must be made to enable us determine appropriate decision making process to be adopted. In addition, consideration for a well structures partial-privatisation by applying local content development will heal the propound   wounds.

Predictably, the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) will have no problem in receiving credit facilities from International bodies for Privatization Support to be executed by the National Council on Privatisation (NCP) through the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), and supervised by the World Bank (WB). The bull has to be taken by the horn, no potential private investors will be ever found in the next ten years who will be willing to invest and finance the construction of roads in the present Nigeria. The return of investment will be zero, as investing cost will triple the anticipated revenue from user charges. What proper legislation is in place supporting Public Private Partnership (PPP)? Therefore, if the sole aim of this forth coming sponsor credit funds are for privatization, the proposed National Roads Board (NRB), Road Fund (RF) and Federal Roads Authority (FRA) will akin to daydreaming.

Therefore, it is recommended that a State Highway and Transportation Official (SHTO) be formed, this will be coupled and work towards and target Public Private Partnership (PPP). This SHTO-PPP will consist of the principal executive and engineering officers of the various 36 states and the CEO of the participating privates companies. The sole duties of this body will be the development, operation, and maintenance of our nation-wide highway infrastructures.

Road transportation in Nigeria controls over 95% of all surface transportation with a total asset base of over Three Trillion Naira. In a recent review by Engr Lanre Sagaya of Yolas Consultant, over 80% of Nigerian road network are under state level estimated to be over 160,000km. However, insensitivity has marred rural roads, perpetuated by roads engineers, professionals, users, and politician at state and national level. They have never considered the important roles rural life and rural economy played in ensuring a more tranquil country and economy. With all the foregoing highway reforms, propaganda and campaign, we have to ensure that the future we build is the one we want, not the one we could have avoided by unnecessarily adopting collated reforms of other developing country. Over 80% of urban roads evolved from rural road that were taken over and turned into federal highways.

Only a State Highway and Transportation Official (SHTO) can reform the legal and administrative framework of the country’s highways and roads. They will ensure even spread of projects in their states, ensure open and competitive tendering process using detail and localized Due Process guidelines to select competent local contractors. This will reduce construction cost, and ensure prompt payment for work done.

In addition, there is urgent need for all concerned decision making to start harmonizing all the existing regulation, legislation, and codes in to one single document operative and managed by the earlier proposed State Highway and Transportation Official. It is very awkward when a Federal Ministry of Transport in a country does not have a department for roads. Federal Ministry of Works should be simply dismantled. Since independence there has become an over-reliance upon the Federal Ministry of Works, and its concomitant parastatals. The term itself, “Ministry of Works” is a complete misnomer. “Ministry of Roads or Works Department under the Federal Ministry of Transport” would be a more applicable term! In place of the earlier proposed State Highway and Transportation Official, an alternative might be demoting the Federal Ministry of Works as a department under the Federal Ministry of Transport.

The foregoing rationally justifies the utmost inclusion of state ministries in the overall affairs of maintaining our highways and roads. The creation of the proposed State Highway and Transportation Official is the best strategy that could handle and control roads development in Nigeria. State Highway and Transportation Official (SHTO) will ensure quality of construction and quality of design as it will affect the life cycle of the road. The present system, where the control of quality is done by the ministry of works representative and the consultant does only advisory tasks is one of the system’s shortcomings over the years.

Financing road maintenance is should not be based on political or economic theory, but on practicality of adaptable policies to suit rapid development. The aim of this paper is to also encourage and propose a road user charging system for our roads network. Immediate issues for discussion should be the reviews of theory of road user charging system in other countries, not just mere adoption of some preferred foreign system. The existing taxation system in the country needs critical analysis by expert as it will relate to road funding needs. In addition, traffic estimates and methodology for cost allocation to vehicles are very important consideration. Lastly, allocation of user charges to vehicles and charging instruments and revenues needs consideration and review.

The opinion of this paper is not to crucify Direct Labour as been campaigned by FMW and some seasoned magazine engineers. On the other hand, if properly used as a complement to other solutions like the BOT and fuel levy, will reduce our problem appreciably. However, no other charging instrument and revenues will play a major role in mobilizing revenues to support spending on road maintenance as compared to road user charges which should come from vehicle license fees, heavy vehicle licenses, levies on transport fuels, transit fees, tolls, and parking charges. Analysed on Nigeria context, all other source of the road user charges will fail, except the Fuel Levy. This is where Nigeria should focus attention. This is the only appropriate charging instrument, which will reflects usage of road space directly and, when collected from the refinery. It is an efficient funding source to administer to solve the Nigerian roads funding problem.  Heavy trucks use more fuel than light vehicles, they do considerably more damage to the road pavement, and hence this should be address by charging a higher fuel tax on diesel fuel than on petrol, reflecting the fact that most heavy vehicles have a diesel engine.

It is believed that with an estimated annual consumption of over ten billion litres of fuel oil, the sum of about N15.0 billion will be generated from the fuel tax at a fixed rate of N1.50 per litre ($0.01)as against less than an average annual toll collections of N700 million.  If we are really serious about the grave condition of the Nigerian roads, and stern about a long term benefits of the roads, then $0.01 as fuel tax is very comical, no matter the economic theory justifying it.

In 2005, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) recorded domestic consumption of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) as 9,572,014,330 billion litres, while 2,361,480,530,000 billion litres of Automotive Gas Oil (AGO) were equally recorded. Assuming an effective and realistic fuel tax on petrol of N 5.00 per liter and on diesel N 8.00 per liter; the annual fee from fuel levy per vehicle per year can be obtained by multiplying the fuel consumption by the average annual km utilization and the tax. Therefore, an average car in Nigeria uses over 1800 liters of petrol per year (with); hence the annual fee per vehicle per year is N 18,000. Multiplying this by the average numbers of cars in the country will generate over 144 Billion Naira. In arriving at the above, it was assumed that buses consume more gasoline than cars and are also used for commercial purposes, hence a factor of occurrence of 3-to account for irregularities of use was adopted.

Also, based on the earlier assumption that the tax on diesel is N 8.00 per liter; the annual fee per lorries, van and trucks per year is obtained by multiplying the fuel consumption by the average annual km utilization and the tax. If about 30% of the over 16,000,000,000 vehicles in Nigeria are lorries and vans, applying same calculation procedure above will generate an annual fee per lorries, van and truck of over 40 Billion. The annual generated revenue will be in the excess of over 92 Billion in just a year compared to the over 50 Billion spent on roads from 1999 till date. Thus, the combination of license fees and petrol taxes will further increase the total annual charges between 15 - 35%.

The above system is the only feasible technological and economic solution to the issues of road funding in Nigeria. Tolls system will fail in Nigeria. Tolls been levied by public administrations responsible for roads will be mismanaged as usual. Past records shows and confirmed this, this was one of the reason the present administration scraped the normal Toll gates across the country. In addition, the direct tolling will produce economic inefficiencies, since traffic may be encouraged to use more costly routes to avoid the toll. FERMA is proposing tolling for privately financed Build Operate and Transfer (BOT) projects.  This evidently will result in insignificant revenue.

Also, the Parking Fees System will equally fail. Parking fees is only realistic in Abuja, considering the on-going reforms by the present FCT administration, but the revenues obtained will be relatively small in comparison with national expenditure for roads rehabilitation and maintenance. Inevitably, considering the Nigerian factor, enforcement will be very difficult and evasion of payment will be paramount and high.

The proposed road maintenance works been financed by revenues from road users, Vehicle Registration Fee, and Road Use Fee in line with the World Bank policies will yield very insignificant funds to maintain our roads compared to a fuel levy been solely adopted. This is very logical and does not need any academic or extensive economic analysis.